


Last One Out Of The Closet (Burn The Whole Place Down)

by c001girl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gender Issues, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c001girl/pseuds/c001girl
Summary: Its hard, being the last one of your friends to start questioning your identity. It's hard and it seems like everybody but you already understands.





	1. Endless CIrcular Shitfeelings

TG: youre like  
TG: the keystone in this whole operation  
TG: the single scrap of straight guy that adds a tasteful splash of whatever color the hetero pride flag is to our lgbtquilt  
TG: like damn these guys have an ally on hand in case of emergencies like if someone needs to…  
TG: change a tire I guess? or wait that's probably something we could get one of the lesbians to do  
TG: who am I kidding im not tuned into what the current gay or straight stereotypes are thatd require leaving the goddamn house once in a while  
TG: all I know is charge my phone eat hot chip be bisexual and ramble on about whatever garbage the internet thinks is important this week.  
TG: the point is if were gonna keep one of dorothys nemeses around im glad its you  
TG: happy birthday  
  
You're no stranger to feeling like shit these days, but reading over Dave's birthday message a second time really makes you feel like shit for some reason. One of those endless circular shitfeelings too, the kind where you feel like shit about the fact that you feel like shit about something you shouldn't feel like shit about. 

Where do you get off getting defensive over some light ribbing? After all, it's not like you've ever gone through what your queer friends have gone through. You've never struggled with your sexuality, never had to work through the years of hangups and self denial that you've come to understand played a pretty big role in the lives of almost all of your friends. You're just some jackoff straight guy feeling resentful about the fact that you aren't allowed into the cool gay club. Get over it.

You stubbornly refuse to get over it for some goddamn reason.

When Roxy comes out, things get worse.

You have no clue why, but you can't stop feeling this deep resentment towards them. Or is it him now? Are you just clinging to the neutral pronoun as a way to avoid admitting to yourself that one of the coolest girls you've ever known is like 80 percent a dude now? Is it bad to think of Roxy's gender in percentage terms? 

You're such a shitty ally you can't believe it.

He hasn't changed as a person, after all. Still the same Roxy you've been friends with since 16. Didn't even change the name. But there's some deeply situated part of you that wishes you could still hang out with a cool hacker girl and her cute alien girlfriend. Being friends with a lesbian couple (or was one or both of them bisexual? Like you said, shitty ally) was one of the coolest things about your life. Getting dragged along to plays and parties and picnics and feeling like you were somehow a part of whatever magical union goes on between two girls in love always made you feel a little better about yourself.

You know you're still friends with Rose, but that's not the point. The point us that you shouldn't be feeling that loss, because guess what dipshit? It wasn't a loss and it doesn't have anything to do with you. Roxy and Callies respective genders aren't yours to get upset about, and nothing besides their respective genders has changed about your relationship with them. Get over it.

You once again stubbornly refuse to get over it for some goddamn reason.


	2. Prelude To Leaving The Goddamn House For Once

You have a hard time with introspection, but you also spend most of the day alone. Shit basically fucking sucks, and you frequently go days without really perceiving the passage of time. 

Wake up, shower, shave, eat cereal, game, nap, wake up, eat chips, game, sleep. Living in a post-scarcity world has been a marvel for the well being of what seems like every person on earth C but you.

It goes on like this for weeks at a time, undifferentiated days only broken up by the increasingly rare occasions on which….

You answer your phone. 

Its an unusually productive night for you, having cooked yourself a whole ass meal, and you work up the energy to check through the reams of unanswered text messages, looking in particular for ones that won’t remind you of exactly how long it’s been since the last time you did this. One sticks out. 

It’s from Rose. A particularly nonthreatening invitation of the sort she extends to you whenever she’s planning an event, knowing full well the majority will go unread. But this one, unlike all the others, is still upcoming. In fact, it’s happening tonight. 

Being alert enough to really process how much of a shutin you are hurts. It hurts so much that it might actually push you out the front door and into a scuttleuber and over to a party where you’ll have to hear about how quickly everyone elses lives are moving. How much they’ve done in the time you’ve spent doing god damn fuck all. 

Yeah fuck it you’re going out tonight.

Where the fuck is a clean shirt? 

Not there, those you left way too long between the washer and dryer. They’re all full of an overwhelming mustiness that will betray to everyone exactly how much of a mess they probably already assume you are. Tonight is about feeling human for once, not spending all night fixated on little reminders of the fact that you live like this. 

Not there, those just plain haven't been washed in a while. You aren’t nearly THAT far gone… 

In what you’re sure Rose would call an act of self sabotage, you leave room for a pointed “yet” at the end of the thought. 

The only other place you could conceivably find some wearable clothing is up in the attic, where you sometimes shove an odd box or duffel bag of shit you didn’t quite want to throw out but also don’t want to deal with finding space for in the dresser or the closet. Most of it isn’t yours per se, but back when all of you used to visit each other more often clothing had a way of organically shifting hands. If anyone really wanted this shit, they’d text you about it. 

Maybe they have texted you, and you just ignored it along with all the rest. 

Okay focus. 

Tonight is about breaking that pattern. You’re well-rested enough to think beyond base self-loathing for once, so get up there, find an acceptable shirt and go talk to some people who might just still like you a little bit despite everything.

You swear the ladder creaks harder than it ever has before as you haul yourself up, a symptom both of the fact that your (dad’s) house is getting up there in the years and that you haven’t exactly been physically active since your last life and death battle all those years ago. Not that you care that much. After all, your appearance had never been something you really cared about, even since childhood. This haircut or that only ever looked alright. That particular pair of frames was as good as any other. These shorts or that shirt looked fine dad, can we get out of the store now please.

Geez, what did other people see in fashion? Kanaya certainly had a flair for it, not that you’d ever spent more than a few minutes talking to her. You’d always found her admirable, but even though you both moved (or stagnated) in the same social circles you never knew what to say when Rose popped out of the room to semi-ironically brew pretentiously named tea. She just seemed so… Put Together in a way you weren’t. She had her problems, of course, but they all seemed so much less stupid than yours. More important, better handled, less her fault. 

Maybe that was a shitty reason not to talk to someone. 

Okay john, new resolution. You are going to talk to Kanaya tonight. 

Wow you spent a long time just thinking that to yourself while absentmindedly stopped halfway up a ladder. Maybe you aren’t as awake as you’d like to think.

At the top, you find all the clutter you’d sequestered away to give infrequent visitors the illusion that you kept an organized house. You just now realize that you probably shouldn’t wear a shirt that recognizably belongs to anyone who is going to be at the party, so that rules out the box exclusively filled with Dave’s sloppily screen printed “clothing line”, the unboxed handful of Karkat sweaters from the monstrously amalgamated Chrisigeenukkah party last year and all of Roxy’s stuff, which is probably too G N C for you to be comfortable in anyway. That box is Rose, That one Jade, both unwearable for two obvious reasons. 

God dammit. At this point, doing laundry will take long enough to make you miss most of the fun. There’s gotta be something here that won’t be incredibly embarrassing to wear. 

Oh.

You guess this could work. 

It’s not going to be entirely un awkward to roll up to the party wearing one of Terezi’s shirts, but it’s perfectly gender-neutral, and you’re reasonably certain she won’t be popping back to earth to make fun of you for it anytime soon. 

Go time egbert. You’re washed, dressed and slightly less depressed.

Lets party.


End file.
